Adrian Peterson only played in the 3 games
in 2016 and his age brings in serious durability questions.

Having found no Super Bowl contender interested in adding the
services of a 32-year-old running back, and for that matter, any
NFL team ready to give him the ball 20-plus times a game, free
agent Adrian Peterson was forced to take a less-than-optimal contract
with the New Orleans Saints this week.

Fantasy owners canít be happy with this move.

AP joins a team that loves to throw the ball behind future Hall-of-Fame
quarterback Drew Brees. In his 11 seasons throwing for the Saints,
Brees has averaged 631 passing attempts per season, including
an NFL-high 673 attempts in 2016.

By contrast, Petersonís Vikings averaged 504 passing attempts
per season from 2007-16 and a high of 588 times in the ten years
since he was drafted out of Oklahoma.

Now add that, at best, Peterson has questionable hands. Heís
never been known as even a good pass-receiving back. Heís
never caught more than 43 passes in any season.

And Peterson is a 32-year-old running back with a lot of wear
and tear (2,418 career carries for 11,747 yards) in a league that
starts to devalue that position when a player hits the 30-year-old
mark.

But the bad news for fantasy owners is only beginning.

Heís going to a team that already had a solid running back
in Mark Ingram. Ingram finished 2016 as the No. 10 fantasy back
with 196.3 fantasy points (12.3 FPts/g). He played in 16 games
for just the second time in his six-year career. Ingram has, by
far, better hands than Peterson.

In my opinion, this deal is a very bad fit. At best, Peterson
is a two-down back on a pass-happy team. At worst heís a
part-time backup and insurance for Ingram, although that running
back does have a checkered injury history.

Unfortunately, it was probably the only option Peterson had at
this time. He needed to sign before the draft or teams would have
filled their needs with a youngster and AP would have been left
waiting by the phone for a call which likely wouldnít have
come until the first back suffered a season-ending injury.

My guess is that Saints management thinks a healthy Peterson,
running the ball, could keep their suspect defense (Iím
being kind) off the field similar to how rookie Ezekiel Elliottís
presence helped the Cowboys defense last season.

So where does that leave the four-time, first-team All-Pro and
2012 MVP? And what of Ingram?
Ingramís 2016 season was good enough to be a starter (205-1044-6
and 46-319-4), but Peterson is likely to see plenty of work too.

Barring injury, their season-long rushing numbers should be split
fairly evenly while Ingram will dominate the passing game numbers.
Still, the addition of Peterson leaves me no option but to label
both running backs with an RB2 status. Ingramís expected
163 fantasy points would rank him 16th last season while Petersonís
139 points would leave him at No. 24.